In his early years, he was known as Mingjie, with the courtesy name Hanqing. He was from Feixiang, Guangping (present-day Hebei). Dou was studious from a young age. When the Yuan troops attacked the Jin, he was once captured, his family was destroyed, and his mother died. Consequently, he crossed the Yellow River to the south, relying on his maternal relatives, the Wu family. Later, an elderly doctor surnamed Wang married his daughter to him and encouraged him to pursue a career in medicine. Shortly thereafter, Dou settled in Caizhou (now in the area of Runan, Henan), where he met the renowned doctor Li Hao and learned the copper man acupuncture technique, thus mastering acupuncture. In the first year of Zhongtong (1260), he was appointed as a Hanlin Academician Expositor-in-waiting, and in the 17th year of Zhiyuan (1280), he was promoted to Grand Academician of the Zhaowen Institute. He passed away in the same year and was buried in Feixiang, posthumously honored as Grand Preceptor, titled Duke of Wei, and given the posthumous name Wenzheng. Later generations commonly referred to him as Grand Preceptor Dou.

Dou Mo is one of the famous figures in the history of acupuncture and moxibustion in our country. His theories such as "multiple abscess eight points," "supplementation and drainage lie in the fingers," "nothing is better than using needles," and "qi arrives deeply and tightly" have had a significant influence on later acupuncture and moxibustion practitioners and have contributed to the development of acupuncture and moxibustion.